T&T's top tier foot­ball com­pe­ti­tion - the T&T Pro League - is any­thing but a pro­fes­sion­al league said na­tion­al mid­field­er and cap­tain Khaleem Hy­land on Wednes­day.

Though Hy­land's ca­reer as a de­fen­sive mid­field­er be­gan at long-stand­ing Pro League out­fit San Juan Jabloteh in 2008, the 32-year-old has point­ed to sev­er­al ques­tion­able sit­u­a­tions that con­fuse him, in­clu­sive of the num­ber of play­ers who are with­out an in­come present­ly, and who were not re­ceiv­ing salaries de­spite hav­ing con­tracts with clubs.

Re­cent­ly, sev­er­al play­ers who were at­tached to clubs in the T&T Pro League and oth­ers, whose con­tracts in the League had ex­pired, were re­quest­ing stipends from the FI­FA-ap­point­ed Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee while train­ing with the se­nior na­tion­al foot­ball team.

The more-than-steady de­fen­sive mid­field­er, who now plays for Al Batin in the Sau­di Ara­bi­an League, re­vealed that he re­ceives a week­ly salary con­sis­tent­ly, de­spite the chal­lenges the league faces like any oth­er.

He said: "I don't think we should call the T&T Pro League a pro­fes­sion­al league be­cause it is not. It does not op­er­ate as a pro­fes­sion­al league. For in­stance, a pro­fes­sion­al league means play­ers have con­tracts for a cer­tain amount of time, and when the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic be­gan, no­body's con­tract should have end­ed au­to­mat­i­cal­ly.

"What should have hap­pened is that they should have all come to­geth­er and de­cide on a way for­ward, how to move for­ward, and how they should have gone about it. The play­ers should have been get­ting paid for the en­tire pe­ri­od of their con­tract," Hy­land ex­plained.

Guardian Me­dia Sports has been re­li­ably in­formed that in the T&T Pro League, more than 90 per cent of the play­ers and staff of the teams were not be­ing paid due to the tough eco­nom­ic cli­mate, to­geth­er with the gov­ern­ment's re­luc­tance to fund the league un­til a prop­er busi­ness plan is pro­duced by the man­age­ment of the league.

On­ly La Hor­quet­ta Rangers, a team owned by busi­ness­man Richard Fer­gu­son, paid their play­ers through­out the pan­dem­ic to date.

Min­is­ter of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Sham­fa Cud­joe said her gov­ern­ment will on­ly in­vest in play­er and ath­lete de­vel­op­ment and will hold off on pump­ing more mon­ey in­to the T&T Pro League, hav­ing done so for the past 16 years.

Hy­land said in Sau­di Ara­bia it is sim­i­lar to T&T and all over the world when it comes to pro­fes­sion­al sports and gov­ern­ments' in­put, but he made it clear that there is strict ac­count­abil­i­ty.

He said he agrees that gov­ern­ment should in­vest in the T&T Pro League, they should de­mand strict ac­count­abil­i­ty from clubs, even if it means hand­ing in their books.

He fur­ther called for the League to get up and run­ning in the short­est pos­si­ble time, point­ing out that there are lots of young peo­ple who de­pend on it.